A poem by Alexander Block – Alexandre Block – Alexandr Blok – Александр Блок
(1880-1921)
We waited commonly for sleep or even death.
The instances were wearisome as ages.
But suddenly the wind’s refreshing breath
Touched through the window the Holy Bible’s pages:
An old man goes there; who’s now all white-haired;
With rapid steps and merry eyes, alone,
He smiles to us, and often calls with hand,
And leaves us with a gait, that is well-known.
And suddenly we all, who watched the old man’s track,
Well recognized just him who now lay before us,
And turning in a sudden rapture back,
Beheld a corpse with eyes forever closed …
And it was good for us the soul’s way to trace,
And, in the leaving one, to find the glee it’s forming.
The time had come. Recall and love in grace,
And celebrate another house-warming!
A few random poems:
- Sonet 4 by William Alexander
- Robert Burns: Holy Willie’s Prayer: “And send the godly in a pet to pray.” – Pope.
- My prayers must meet a brazen heaven poem – Gerard Manley Hopkins poems
- Eating Poetry by Mark Strand
- On The Death Of A Young Lady Of Five Years Of Age by Phillis Wheatley
- Алишер Навои – На лице горит созвездье у красавицы моей
- Robert Burns: My Tocher’s The Jewel:
- Владимир Маяковский – Ров (РОСТА №181)
- The Travail Of Passion by William Butler Yeats
- The Aloe
- Зинаида Александрова – Белочка
- Cell Mate
- Robert Burns: Tho’ Cruel Fate Should Bid Us Part:
- Pejar Creek by Mary Gilmore
- Pad, Pad by Stevie Smith
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- Afridi Love
- Adoration
- Whispering In Wattle Boughs
- Thoras Song Ashtaroth
- The Swimmer
- The Sick Stockrider
- The Last Leap
- Gone
- An Exiles Farewell
- A Song Of Autumn
- A Dedication
- Medical Ethics
- Vain
- Myself
- My Heritage
- Miserimus
- Memory
- Karazah Karl
- Judith
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works

Alexander Blok (1880-1921), also Block, was a Russian poet, writer, publicist, playwright, translator and literary critic. A classic of Russian literature.